


The Many Deaths of Phil Coulson

by in_motu_proprio



Series: World War May [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Grieving, Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, May's POV, Oral Sex, Philinda - Freeform, but not really, domestic abuse, she punched him right in the face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:41:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_motu_proprio/pseuds/in_motu_proprio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This toggles between the scene where May is digging up Phil's grave and their past together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Many Deaths of Phil Coulson

_**2014, Arlington National Cemetery** _

It was going to take forever to get the dirt out of her hair. May knew that, and yet she continued to dig. Hill’s message, because that’s all it could have been, had made her think of this place. The last time she’d been here she’d been wearing a black dress and hadn’t stopped crying for three days after. May remembered thinking she was going to actually faint as they set Phil’s casket on the metal frame around the grave in Arlington. Fury said he had made sure Phil’s body got back to Arlington because he was a hero and deserved to be buried as such. May stood in the back and watched as the crowd of near silent mourners waited for the priest to speak. She couldn’t remember what the man said or if it brought comfort or ire, but she knew it was over when the winches groaned as they began to lower him into the ground. 

Her heart was pounding and May took a break with the shovel, flopping down onto the ground to catch her breath and to try to shake the memory of dirt scattering over the lid of his casket after the machines had finished their job. It wasn’t like that was the only time she’d thought he was dead. The first time she’d thought Phil was dead was in Qutar in 1989. A building had come down all around him, but he’d found a pocket of air and had made it under there for three days. Then in 1994, they were in Libya and he’d been shot twice in the shoulder and nearly bled out. There was 1999 when he had to go off the grid and Fury told her he was dead. When he’d come back to her, she’d broken his jaw. In all, May had thought Phil dead half a dozen times. Every time it got worse because every time the odds of it being true increased. 

This death, the Battle of New York death, May had been convinced it was real. At that point, she supposed, he actually had still been dead on a slab somewhere. May got up and started to dig again. There hadn’t been a viewing before they buried Phil, and Fury had been quick to put him in the ground. It wasn’t until she found out he was actually alive, that his ‘death’ had been overstated, that she’d actually thought about how just how quick it was.

Dirt flew over May’s shoulder as she continued to dig. This was all layer upon layer of lies. Phil’s death, his burial, his resurrection, Fury’s confiding in her, her putting together the team… it just went on and on until her brain felt like a shriveled shell around all the fetid lies. It was too much and she was done. S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone and if he’d take her back, Melinda was never going to lie to Phil again. She felt the shovel hit the casket and paused a moment. May knew that he wasn’t in there, but there was still something really grotesque about this that gave her pause. 

When she continued to dig, unearthing the top half of the box and opening it, May had to take a few deep breaths before she’d chance the lid. It took her two tries to get it open, but once she did, she couldn’t help but be relieved that there really wasn’t anything inside. “This… this is so messed up,” she grumbled as she slid into the casket and started to search it for hidden compartments. She was sitting in the empty casket of her her ex-husband, the man she had loved for most of her life and who wanted nothing to do with her. Wasn’t life grand? May felt the latch for a hidden compartment and pulled it open. A flash drive dropped into her palm, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t dug up Phil’s grave for nothing. Body or not, May felt like she’d done something wrong.

**************************************************************************

****  
****  
**  
_Just after the scene in the pilot where Coulson recruits May._   
**  


“You know I’m not angry with you.” May’s voice was soft in the close space of Phil's bed. “You were following Fury’s orders. It was need to know.” Her fingers traced over his chest and she put down thought after thought of leaving or even just of pulling back. Tomorrow would hurt because she’d have to pull away again, but right now May knew they both needed this more than she needed to feel good tomorrow.

“I feel guilty,” he confessed as he swept her hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. “All that time in Tahiti, I could have convinced Fury to allow me to let you or Barton and Romanoff know.” Phil looked over at her, eyes pleading for forgiveness. May had to remind herself over and over that he didn’t know. He had no idea about what was running through his veins, or the fact that Fury’s guys had played whack-a-mole in his brain. There was nothing about him that didn’t seem like Phil, though. Melinda clung to that, praying it would be enough to see him through whatever was coming. 

“You should feel guilty. That’s normal. I don’t blame you, though.” Her fingers stroked over the scar on his chest, knowing just how bad it had to have been for this to be the result. Her fingers touched the side of one raised stripe of flesh and got a wince. “Does it still hurt?” She turned her head to look up at him, eyes soft. 

“Sometimes,” he confessed. May wondered if he’d spoken with anyone about his injury or if he’d just Coulson-ed them all into thinking he was fine. The people who knew what really happened were keeping a close eye on him, but what about everybody else? Did they think he was fine, that he’d bounced back after New York so easily? “When you came over, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“But you hoped it would,” May shot back as she patted his bare chest and sat up. 

“I’m not dead,” he said flatly and got a roll of May’s eyes in response. “Thanks for reminding me that I’m not dead, Melinda.” His fingers stroked from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine, sweeping over vertebra as they descended. She shivered under his fingertips, biting her lip and thinking God that she was facing away from him right now. “Sometimes…” May turned around and held his eyes for a moment. She knew what he meant, how it felt to live outside of yourself like that. “Stay with me.” 

May froze up and stopped her movements as though a predator was searching for her. “I’ve got to get home.”

“No,” Phil said softly as he sat up, “you don’t. We both know you don’t, Melinda.” His mouth brushed her shoulder and May bit her bottom lip hard. She’d had sex with him earlier, a celebration for Phil’s return, but that was pretty normal. If she stayed, what would that mean? “It doesn’t have to ever happen again, but just for tonight… can we forget the baggage and the bullshit?” She could feel him struggling, trying to decide if he would say what he was feeling. He opened his mouth and got out “I lo…” before May climbed into his lap and kissed him. Worse than the pain of having to untangle her emotions tomorrow morning was to have to do that with the full knowledge that he was still in love with him. How did you shake off connection when the man who loved you was so good it made your soul look black? The problem had never been him, though. 

“Don’t, ok?” She pressed her forehead to his, breathing in the same air. Their chests pressed close together and her arms wrapped around his neck. “I’ll stay.” She’d do whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t say ‘I love you’. She had a mission to do, she had to take care of Phil in a whole new way and lying to him would only be made harder by his declaration. Phil gave her that look and she instantly caved. “This is the last time, though.” Even as she said it, she knew he didn’t believe her. They’d had dozens of ‘last times’ over the years. It had become cliched, but it was still something she had to tell herself. It was the only way she’d allow this indulgence. 

“We could try again.” His fingers stroked the back of her neck and she could feel the slight tremor there as he held her tight. “We’re not who we were, Melinda. I don’t feel the same.” She kissed him hard, pushing Phil back onto the bed and doing the one thing she knew for sure would shut him up. She sat on his face.

**************************************************************************

__  
**2014, Arlington National Cemetery**  


May climbed out of the grave, greeting the man who she’d surprised on her way out of Phil’s casket before heading to cover. She made it into the car and booted up the drive. Within seconds, her heart felt like it was twisting in on itself. “Oh Phil,” she said softly, fingertips over her mouth. How could this have all gone so horribly wrong? Phil didn’t deserve what was happening to him. She’d lost him because of this, because she hadn’t been honest with him. May understood his anger, had even anticipated it when she and Fury were discussing the mission early on. She knew when she took the job that this it could easily be the end of any type of relationship with Phil. The problem was that there was no one else she’d trust, no one else who would know for sure if he was losing his mind.

It turned out to all be for nothing. Even digging this up for him was going to be for naught. Phil was done with her once and for all. It hurt, but it was surprisingly freeing, too. May sat in the car, fingertip running around a ring made out of a gum wrapper. Phil had no idea she still had it or that when he’d jokingly asked him to marry her after their first critical thinking test, or that she still thought about how her heart skipped around in her chest when he slid it on her finger that day. It was years after that that they kissed for the first time, but that joking proposal had always weighed heavily with her. The ring of paper sat in the change holder, bent and folded several times over the years, leaving it a little worse for the wear, but it was still hers, still theirs. She’d bring the information to him and if he still wouldn’t have her back, May was going to go off the grid.

**************************************************************************

****  
****  
_1999, New Year’s Eve_

Phil didn’t want to be in the emergency room on New Year’s Eve. That was why he was seated at May’s kitchen table allowing the woman to put his jaw back in place. “I could ring your neck, Phil Coulson.” May was just glad she knew what she was doing. She hated to admit it, but the S.H.I.E.L.D. first aide and triage classes continued to come in handy. “Going off the grid is one thing, but having Fury tell everyone you were dead?” She felt the place where it was out of alignment and made a plan of action. He went to open his mouth but she shook her head. “Shut up.” May clicked the joint back into place and held it for a few moments after, letting him get back control before she pulled her hand away. 

“Do I not get to talk at all?” Phil looked up at her with those earnest school boy eyes. May wanted to hit him again.

“I thought you were dead.” May could feel her face crumbling, every ounce of life she had in her draining out. “Fury sat with me, he held my hand and told me you were M.I.A. and that chances were slim of ever recovering you.” May had cried harder for Phil than she’d cried for anyone in her life. His loss had been profound, had hurt more than any physical injury she’d ever had. 

“I’m sorry.” Phil was keeping his jaw as still as he could so it came out a little muffled andstrange, but she knew what he meant. “Mellie.” That wide hand came to cup her face, thumb brushing across her cheek to get rid of a tear she didn’t know she was shedding. “I’m sorry,” he repeated and drew her in close. May was crying again. He shifted her close and stroked over her back. “I knew you’d come looking otherwise. I couldn’t even tell you that I was going under. It had to be believable.” That included a grieving wife. Phil clearly felt bad for hurting her, but they both knew what their life sometimes entailed. 

Melinda closed her eyes and let him comfort her. It was something she only ever let him do and she needed it desperately. She’d been a husk of herself since his ‘death’, and having his arms around her was a gift. Melinda May had never been a romantic until Phil started to show her how good it could feel to be appreciated in a romantic way. Then it had all been feelings and the fallout from that. It was disgusting. Damn him for making her want this. All the anger was being sucked away, or at least tabled, because he was holding her tight and telling her how much he’d missed her. “I hate you,” Melinda gritted out, but she didn’t pull back. 

“I know.” Phil, damn him, stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. “Go lay on the sofa. I’ll bring you tea.” Melinda complied, even if it was only to catch her breath. When he came out of the kitchen, it was with a tea tray including her favorite tea cakes and some strong green tea. He didn’t say anything, just served her tea and then sat next to her with his cup, his arm on the cushions along the back of the sofa. She knew she could make him wait all night and into the next day, but it was only a few minutes before Melinda was sitting up and leaning into him as he wrapped that strong arm around her shoulders.


End file.
